Giving a hoot about Canadian music

Behind the Hoots: September

Wool and Howl

“Colour and Detail” – Wool and Howl (Lyrics by Luke Nares)

I saw a garden in black and white and you said “what’s the point?”But I’d sketch it out if you use your paints.Add your colour to the details; drawing out what we’re going to make.But my blue isn’t your blue, it’s a tiny ocean from me to you.And your green isn’t my pride but our red is the fact of life.

While most of Wool and Howl’s latest EP feels like the product of a number of major changes the band has gone through since their last major release, “Colour and Detail” is a vivid follower to the opening sample urging listeners to follow their passion. And while newcomer Josée Wilson turns her final request not to stay “inside the lines” into an alluring plea, it’s the visual evocations in the opening stanza that truly reflects the reason to go your own way. “My blue isn’t your blue,” just may be the simplest, most poignant way of showing us how we see the world differently—and that it’s OK.

– Eleni Armenakis

“Smoothie” – Winona Forever (Lyrics by Rowan Webster-Shaw)

You said I smell like Listerine and cigarettes, But I just want you to like me as much as Kanye West likes Kanye West

In the first line of Winona Forever’s “Smoothie,” from the band’s debut LP This is Fine., cigarette smoke has been unsuccessfully masked and it has been pointed out by the one you lust after. (Are they grossed out? Do they care?) By the second line, anxiety has taken over and you’ve concluded that they are not as charmed by your efforts as you want them to be. You’re crushed. You’re not asking for much, just to be liked as much as Kanye West likes himself. It’s a topical and hilarious lyric that nicely summarizes the twenty-something year old psyche.

– Laura Stanley

“Learn” – KROY (Lyrics by Camille Poliquin)

You’re gonna have to learn to love I’m gonna have to learn to breathe You’re gonna have to learn to love I’m gonna have to learn to leave

The tender chorus is the story of someone who wants to leave a destructive suffocating relationship but cannot totally find the strength to. The song is the sudden realization that everything is not fine, that things will not improve over time. The song later concludes with the fact that things will be happier when the partner is dead.